Baroness Coffey (Con)

My Lords, “The Lord moves in mysterious ways” is a well-known phrase. But today perhaps it is better to say, “The Lords move in mysterious ways”. I came back from the Council of Europe specifically to continue debate on the Bill, because I believe that scrutiny is necessary. I thought that the purpose of a sitting Friday on the Bill was to debate the legislation before us, not to debate process. I tabled this amendment to the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, in response to the letter circulated by the Bill’s sponsors to MPs this week, which I consider was actually somewhat misleading. I make specific reference in my amendment to the excellent reports prepared by respected cross-party Select Committees of this House: the Constitution Committee and, in particular, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The continuing claim that this Bill is the safest in the world and was largely good to go in this House—perhaps with a few tweaks—just does not hold true. The reports and recommendations therein of the two committees to which I have referred were pretty damning about the unprecedented use of Henry VIII powers, the number of issues to be left to regulations, and so on. If I were the sponsor of the Bill, I would have been embarrassed by the outcome of these reports. It was embarrassing to read for Peers who also support the principle of the Bill, but those reports confirmed that this was a poor and flawed Bill. At Second Reading I raised my main issue, which was about guarding against indirect coercion—a topic that came up from the Royal College of Psychiatrists in particular. For certain, safety is not secure in this Bill. Nevertheless, I suggested that while I would try to make improvements to the way the Bill worked, I felt then that the Commons might need to start again and come up with a better Bill. For what it is worth, I wish the Government had been more open about the discussions they were having with the Bill’s sponsors. I respect the Government’s neutrality, but it was particularly important to see how the Bill might work in practice. Time after time, parliamentary routes proved fruitless. Freedom of information requests were turned down repeatedly and consistently, if the departments even bothered to reply. They certainly have not replied to lots of the appeals that were made. The ongoing response was that it would not be in the public interest to reveal the discussions on what had happened or on how this might work.